CARRIER 6: COUNTDOWN By Keith Douglass

smashed one of those ridges with her sail, damaging her periscopes or

satellite-communication gear.

The gamble had paid off, however, when the torpedoes had stopped

tracking the Typhoon and started homing on one of those ridges.

Probably, the lead torpedo had exploded on the ice, and the shock wave

had thrown the second into the ice as well. In any case, Revolutsita

was unharmed.

And now, Dobrynin had become the hunter, and the Americans the prey.

CHAPTER 19

Sunday, 15 March

1540 hours (Zulu +2)

Control room/attack center

U.S.S. Galveston

Galveston’s well-trained crew reacted with drilled efficiency and a

complete lack of wasted motion. Rubber masks on hoses dropped from the

overhead like the emergency apparatus aboard a 747 losing cabin

pressure. The control room crew calmly strapped on the dangling masks

and kept to their posts as men with fire extinguishers doused the small

electrical fire. The compartment’s blowers were still operational, and

the air cleared rapidly.

“Mr. Paulson!” Montgomery yelled, his voice muffled somewhat by his

mask.

“What’s our damage?”

“Nothing too bad, Skipper! Dinged the sail, port side. Fire in the aux

comm circuitry, under control. Minor casualties, bumps and bruises …”

“Okay! Sonar! This is the Captain. Can you hear anything yet?”

“Still awfully fuzzy, Captain,” Ekhart’s voice came back. “We’ve got

echoes off the ice and bottom. Might be fifteen minutes before we get a

clear sweep. And, sir …”

“Yes?”

“Captain, I think we’ve lost one flank array. We’re deaf to port.”

“Okay. Stay on it. If anyone can hear that bastard through the crap,

it’s you!”

“Aye, sir.”

Think like the enemy! Montgomery told himself. And who was the enemy?

A sub driver, like him. A captain first rank, most likely, for one of

their biggest and finest vessels, or even an admiral.

No, not an admiral. That clever bastard had dived, turned away from the

Mark 48s, then suckered them into the ice, as slippery-slick as sex.

The guy had balls … and the maneuver suggested he did this for a

living, not as a reward for years of faithful service to the Motherland.

Okay, so he was a working captain, and he knew how to use the ice as

cover against torpedo attack. He also knew he would have to find and

kill the American attack sub before the attack sub was able to take

another shot. The Russian’s sonars would be deafened for the moment; he

wouldn’t know how badly Galveston’s ears had been singed, so he’d assume

Galveston still had fully operational sonar.

He would turn onto a reciprocal course to the torpedoes, running

straight down the track toward Galveston’s position. He’d be coming

fast, to cover the distance before Gal could recover her hearing, and he

would be skimming as close to the ice as he dared just in case she could

hear him, making use of the confused echoes still bouncing back and

forth between ice and bottom to mask the noise of her engines. He might

dump noisemakers too, just to keep things lively.

“Diving Officer!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Make our depth two hundred feet. Helm, come to zero-zero-five. Make

our speed dead slow. Just enough to maintain way.”

“Two hundred feet, aye, aye, Captain.”

“Coming now to zero-zero-five, speed three knots.”

Montgomery took his place at the search periscope. “Up scope!”

1610 hours

Control room/attack center

Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita

Where is he?

That question had been weighing on Dobrynin’s mind for nearly half an

hour now. If the American had continued his approach at five or ten

knots, the Typhoon should have met it by now. The echoes in the water

were dying away at last, and the sonar officer reported clear water.

But no American sub. The bastard couldn’t simply make himself

invisible!

“Slow to one third,” he said. “Sonar! Anything?”

“No, Comrade Captain. It is possible the American turned away after his

torpedoes went active, and left the area.”

“Hmm. Possible. But not likely. This American submarine captain, he

is very good. He crept up on us like a wolf on a reindeer. I somehow

doubt he went to so much trouble simply to loose two torpedoes, then run

away again.”

But Dobrynin was faced with another decision, and as he made it, he was

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